Lee teachers’ decision highlightsthe many problems of merit pay

To the Editor:I am writing in response to the article, “Leeteachers donate AP bonuses to school,” published inthe Winter 2014 edition of MTA Today. This articleexplains exactly why a private, business-model stylemerit pay program cannot be effective in the worldof public education. While the selfless act of the APteachers who received these bonuses and yet choseto donate them back to the school seemed “crazy”to the representative who urged them to accept thefunds, it speaks volumes to the true insanity of payfor performance.

Merit pay based on test scores is inequitable,
unfair and in most cases ineffective. Politicians and
so-called educational companies that advocate these
types of incentive programs forget that in education,
it takes a village and oftentimes, true student growth
cannot be measured by a test.

Career analyst Dan Pink gives a fascinatingTED talk called “The puzzle of motivation” in whichhe debunks the idea that financial rewards improvemotivation. In fact, his research has found theopposite to be true.

Why then implement this fallible system in
education? Kudos to the Lee teachers for their
generosity, but also for their intelligence. Hopefully,
their actions will awaken others to the many
problems of merit pay.

Hilary Skelton

Framingham Teachers Association

Brousseau is the perfect candidateto serve educators’ interests

To the Editor:I applaud the MTA Board of Directors’ decisionto recommend MTA member Robert Brousseaufor re-election to the Pension Reserves InvestmentManagement Board.

As the Massachusetts Teachers’ RetirementSystem’s appointee to serve on the PRIM Board, IDennis J. NaughtonMTA Retired

MTA Today welcomes letters to the editor from MTA members. Letters should be nolonger than 200 words. Each letter submittedfor publication must address a topic covered inMTA Today, must be signed and must includethe writer’s telephone number for confirmationpurposes. Opinions must be clearly identifiedas belonging to the letter-writer. We reservethe right to edit for length, clarity and style.To submit a letter, mail it to MTA Today, 20Ashburton Place, 8th floor, Boston, MA 02108 ore-mail it to mtatodayletters@massteacher.org.For additional information, please refer to theguidelines posted on www.massteacher.org.Letters policyPARCC field tests draw mixed reactions

By Laura Barrett

R eactions to the first round of PARCC field tests run the gamut: “The kids were excited about it.” “The user interface is terrible.” “It’slargely going well.” “It’s an awful lot of testing.”Fortunately, developers of the tests and statepolicymakers won’t have to rely on anecdotalinformation about the exams — created by thePartnership for Assessment of Readiness for Collegeand Careers — since they will have a wealth of databased on how well students perform and surveys ofstudents and test administrators. In a few months,they will also have findings from an MTA-backedcase study of PARCC administration in Revere andBurlington.

“We are helping to manage and finance thePARCC case study because we believe that feedbackfrom educators and students is essential,” said MTAPresident Paul Toner. “The study will help make abetter test and help the state determine whether weshould replace MCAS with PARCC in the future.”Fourteen states and the District of Columbiafield-tested the performance-based assessment portionof PARCC in English language arts and mathematicsbetween March 24 and April 11. They will field-testthe end-of-year portion between May 5 and June6. About 8 percent of students in more than 1,000Massachusetts schools are participating, with sometaking it online and others on paper. In Burlington, allstudents are taking all sections of the online PARCCtests, as are all students in three Revere schools.

The results will be used to create a bank of testitems and troubleshoot implementation issues. Nextyear, districts will be allowed to choose whether toadminister PARCC or MCAS. In the fall of 2015,the Board of Elementary and Secondary Educationwill vote on whether to replace MCAS with PARCC,though the 10th-grade MCAS exam will be used as agraduation requirement through the class of 2018.

‘Hiccups and glitches’

Massachusetts Commissioner of EducationMitchell Chester said that the rollout was “notwithout its hiccups and glitches.”Diana Marcus, president of the BurlingtonEducation Association, administered the test for herfifth-graders. She agreed that it got off to a rockystart, but said it improved over time.

“The first day, we had a lot of difficulties withkids not being able to log in or being booted off,”she said. There were also user interface problems,A bigger concern for many was the amount ofresources the field tests took to administer. AndrewMarcinek, technology director for the Groton-Dunstable Regional School District, posted a detailedexplanation of the complicated steps required. Heconcluded, “I have some concerns about the time andresources this test will require on a large-scale level.… My worry is that this test will consume valuabletime from central office administration, tech directorsand IT managers, principals and teachers.”If it was hard to test 8 percent of students, willthe state and districts be able to scale up to manymore next year and 100 percent the year after?

Please turn to Rollout/Page 14
Evan Zraket, a fourth-grader at the Healey School
in Somerville, answered
sample PARCC questions
during a “test the test” day
held at the East Somerville
Community School on
March 15. The Somerville
Teachers Association
helped organize the event.
Evan said he thought the
questions he answered
were about as difficult as
those on MCAS tests but
that he found some of the
PARCC instructions hard to
understand.